post 2

Creativity.

• Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. (page 396)

• Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
1. need for novel, varied, and complex stimulation
2. need to communicate ideas and values
3. need to solve problems (page 396)

• In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown. (page 394)

From Human Motivation, 3rd ed., by Robert E. Franken

http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/creativity/define.htm

noun

1.

the state or quality of being creative.

2.

the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

3.

the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creativity

My idea of creativity is that it is ones ability to do something new and innovative that breaks away from the norm or further enhances it. You can be creative within a group or it can be done by yourself. Another view that I have on being creative is that it is based on opinion.

Task 1: The consequence game:

We were split into groups of either 3 or 4, each group was given a piece of paper and a pen. Then the first person wrote down an adjective, fold the paper over so that what we had written couldn't be seen, and pass the paper on to the next person. The next person carried on the process and wrote down a noun, the next a verb, another adjective and then finally the first person wrote down a noun. After repeating this game 3 times everyone in the class had a sentence, some making perfect sense and some making none at all. This in itself aids defining creativity as not one "consequence" was even remotely similar, this shows innovative thinking as not one mind is the same.

The "consequence" I received was: 

The excitable giraffe jumped at the huge bra.

Task 2: Personal creative task:

Once we had defined and looked at the meaning of creativity we were set the task of going away and creating something creative ourselves. I had many different ideas for being creative but I felt the best way to show creativity is to take the task to a basic form. I chose to create a picture.

This is what I came up with:

I call it "man with hat" and it was made on paint. Although I used the most basic of software I was able to create something unique. 

Task 3: The pen.

Our final task given to us was to go and create a short clip with no breaks in time. The clip had to be around a minute long and had to involve a pen. The task at first was very daunting as it was all down to us as a small group to create a piece. Once the task started I got more comfortable with it and was disappointed when it was over as it gave me a real chance to be creative with something as simple as a pen.